About Traps

Traps are incredibly useful in Fortnite. They can guarantee you an elimination without having to expose yourself to any kind of risk. You can literally place traps around somebody and dance while they’re left contemplating their mistakes, awaiting their death.

Currently, there are two types of traps in Fortnite. The regular old Spike Trap, and the new Poison Dart Trap. They are both very dangerous, and you could argue that the new poison trap is even more dangerous despite it doing less damage to your enemies. Spike traps deal 150 damage. Poison traps apply a damage-over-time effect which deals 80 damage over 8 seconds directly to health. In case you took any fall or storm damage during your game and you don’t have a medkit, you’re in bad luck, you will die if this trap hits you.

These two traps are very similar, but there are a couple of key differences. Spike traps stack damage but poison traps don’t. Which means if you get hit by two spike traps at the same time, you will die, but if you get hit by two poison traps you will only lose 80hp as if only one of them hit you. Their range is different as well. Spike traps can hit someone only in the tile they’ve been placed in while poison traps can hit up to three tiles away.

Basic Trapping Techniques

If you play Fortnite regularly, the chances are that you’ve been trapped before. We all know the helpless feeling when you realize that you’ve played straight into your opponent’s hands and put yourself in a position for them to easily trap you. I’ll be showing you what to look for in order to trap your opponent which will also help you see what you need to avoid.

First, you have to understand what to look for in order to set up a trap play. Whether you’re located above or below somebody you need to watch out for these two very common scenarios:

As you can see, there can be a gap between the ramps, or they can overlap. You can trap your opponent in both situations by placing a roof above the ramp they’re located on and then trapping them in with walls.

In order to avoid being trapped, you can either extend another ramp to the side or preemptively put a roof over your head and edit through it. Both methods are relatively easy to do, you will just have to learn to recognize when your opponent has the opportunity to trap you.

What to do When You Get Trapped

While your opponent will always have the advantage when they have you trapped, you can still surprise them in a lot of ways and get out of that sticky situation. There are too many options to choose from when you’re in that situation so I won’t be able to go over all of them. The best advice I can give you is to be as unpredictable as possible, but that won’t help you much if you’re just starting out with Fortnite, so I’ll show you some of my favorite things to do in these situations and explain my thinking behind the moves I make.

If you are trapped above your ramp that means that your opponent is right below you. You can quickly edit down and try to eliminate your opponent before they trap you.

If you are below your opponent’s ramp and they still manage to trap you before you trap them, the chances are that your opponent will need a moment to realize that you’re under their ramp which will make their traps slightly delayed. You can use this delay to either quickly break your opponent’s ramp with an AR or an SMG and replace them with your own. Once you have the control over the ramp, you can either make an edit play and eliminate them, or break their walls and run out of their box.

If you do something your opponent is not expecting, they won’t know how to react to it, which will make their aim less accurate, and their reaction time slower. These are very dangerous moves but doing anything is better than just surrendering to the traps.

Advanced Trapping Technique

Other than looking for opportunities to trap someone, you can set up situations where your opponent won’t even realize that you’re going for the trap play. One of the ways to do this is from your standard 1by1 box. If you place a ramp towards your opponent in your box while they’re trying to take over your wall, they will assume that you will edit from the top and try to shoot them. They will immediately react by placing their own stars to either try to block you off or to try and shoot you as soon as you edit through. However, you’re not going for that at all. You will edit your ramp and wall quickly, place a roof above your opponent’s ramp, box him in and trap him. This is a very, very useful technique that works almost always against even the more experienced players. This move will be a good addition to your arsenal of techniques.

Ending Notes

The trick to successfully outplaying people is speed. The faster you move, the less time you give your opponents to react. If they’re not expecting what you’re about to do, you have a huge advantage. I will never be able to describe every single scenario or every single method of trapping someone. There are just too many ways to do it. The best possible tip to give is to be creative. I hope my explanations helped you figure out how traps work and how to avoid getting yourself trapped, but now it’s up to you to figure out what works best for you in all of the different situations you’ll encounter.